


The Wisdom of Cats

by malkinisms (hannibalisms)



Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, M/M, Pseudo-Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-13
Updated: 2011-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-27 04:49:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannibalisms/pseuds/malkinisms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are mewling noises coming from the inside and Thor opens it gently. Three kitten heads pop out of the box, damp with morning dew and mewling their unhappiness. "I found them on my run," Thor tells him, "and I knew I had to save them, Loki. They don't have a mother to take care of them. I don't want them to get sick and die."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wisdom of Cats

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of crack, but not really, since it has plot. This was initially inspired by [Eva](http://eatingsoap.tumblr.com) when I was complaining about not being able to write Thor/Loki schmoop. I said that "for once I’d like to be able to write a happy little thing about Thor and Loki and kittens or something but then all of a sudden, I don’t know, Loki’s tossing kittens off the Bifrost or something" and she replied that if Loki wasn't tossing kittens off of something, the world would end. Then she drew me [this wonderful drawing](http://eatingsoap.tumblr.com/post/14042268144/the-dragons-song-eatingsoap-lanen-kaelar-eatingsoap) and things just kind of went from there.
> 
> So this is an alternative universe, for sure, head-canon of when Thor and Loki are stuck on Midgard for some unknown reason (maybe they got caught fucking in the throne room, or something).
> 
> I spent a lot of time just having this hang out in my open browser (since sunday or something?) so I don't really know how to make it ~more pleasing~ to me but I'm all right with it, since I don't write schmoop often.
> 
> Enjoy this little escape into schmoop!

"What," Loki says with a sneer, "is that?"

Thor can hear the dislike dripping off every word as Thor shows him the box he's brought in from outside. There are mewling noises coming from the inside and Thor opens it gently. Three kitten heads pop out of the box, damp with morning dew and mewling their unhappiness. "I found them on my run," Thor tells him, "and I knew I had to save them, Loki. They don't have a mother to take care of them. I don't want them to get sick and die."

Thor leaves Loki sneering at the box and gets a couple of dish towels from the kitchen. "I'm going to take care of them, clean them up a bit. They're adorable!"

"Why didn't you take them to the animal shelter, Thor? We're not a halfway house for animals! I'm trying to get my studying done, I don't have time to take care of animals while you're working!" Loki crosses his arms over his chest. "We have to make the best of things while we're here, Thor, and you're not making it easy."

As Thor lifts out the first kitten he doesn't say anything, but begins to gently scrub it dry.  "You won't have to care for them, Loki. I'll buy the food and the litter box and all the things they need. The only thing you'd have to do is fill their water once in a while if I forget, that's all."

The kitten in his hands bats at the towel Thor is drying him with. They're two or three months old, probably, not big enough yet to fend for themselves. This first one is white but for its little black feet that look like socks, golden eyes watching Thor's every move. Thor sets it back down in the box and picks up the second, a ginger cat with startling green eyes. He rubs it with the towel for a moment again before switching towels. Loki just stands there, arms crossed over his chest, watching Thor clean and dry each kitten. The third is a dusky grey with blue eyes, and lays placidly in Thor's arms as he cuddles it.

"They need names," Thor says finally. He scratches the ginger one between the ears and it rubs against his fingers. "We should take them to the vet, and then go and get them collars and tags."

"We?" Loki says, eyebrows rising. "We? Do you have a mouse in your pocket, Thor? I am going to go back into the study and read about Franz Boas, and you are going to take them to the vet. They're your cats. Not mine."

He does an about-face and stomps off, leaving Thor in the kitchen with three mewling kittens.

* * *

Thor takes the kittens to the vet, and though they're skinny for their age - which is actually around five or six months old - and a little malnourished, they're in good health. The vet gives them their initial vaccinations and tells Thor that they need to come back in a few weeks to get spayed and neutered, and then in six months to get more shots. Then they can have their rabies vaccinations and get proper tags.

The vet also gives him some special food for them to fatten them up a little, and the bill is almost painful to pay, but for his little additions to the household, it's worth it.

It takes him a little while to come up with names for them, but he finally does. The white one is called Sokkar, after the little black socks he wears.  The ginger kitten he names Ruby, because the color of her fur will be striking once she's grown.  It takes him the longest to come up with a name for the little grey one, who lays placidly in his arms the whole time the vet examines her.  He settles on Eydis, since she reminds him of the good fortune that he's had. She licks at the pads of his fingers as he pets her, trying to get the salt from his skin, he thinks.  He leaves them in their new travel cage while he goes into the pet supply store and buys all the things they need - toys, food, litter and litter box, food and water bowls, and cat treats; little frivolous.  Thor finds it amusing when the girls flock to help him, making eyes at him as he chooses collars - red for Sokkar, bright blue for Ruby, and green for Eydis - and makes tags on the machine with their names and his address on them.

By the time he gets home he has to make two trips into the house.  Loki rolls out of the study on his chair using his legs, watching Thor set down his purchases.  "Still have the little mongrels, then?"

"They're not _mongrels_ , Loki.  They have names," Thor says patiently, sitting on the floor in the living room as he slips the tags on the collars and the collars on the cats.  "They're staying with us.  I'm their caretaker, now."

Loki sighs and rolls back into the study and returns to his books.  "As you will, Thor, but I'm not going to care for them.  I'll not be cruel, but they're not my responsibility."

Thor gets up off the floor and makes his way to the study.  There are books everywhere, with little pieces of paper stuck to them and writing in the margins.  Since they've been down on Midgard, Loki's started going to higher education here and learning more than Thor could ever want to.  Thor steps around them - once, he knocked over a stack of them and upset weeks of notes and Loki didn't talk to him for _days_  - and sets his hands on Loki's shoulders, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of his head.  "I know, brother, but tolerate them.  I'd like to take care of something, since you don't let me do so."

Loki lets a sharp breath out through his nose.  "You know I abhor being taken care of, Thor.  I am more than capable of it, as you well know.  I will let you keep your little pets as long as you keep them away from _me_."  His fingers press down onto the pages of his books and the pages wrinkle, and Thor knows not to press the issue.

"I promise I will do my best to keep them from bothering you, Loki.  Thank you for letting me keep them."

Loki makes a non-committal noise in the back of his throat and returns to scribbling in the margins of the book he has in his lap.  Thor watches him for a moment longer, watches Loki's spidery handwriting cover the margins and underline passages.  He twines his fingers through Loki's hair and pulls back on it softly, and Loki tilts his head back (as Thor knew he would) and Thor presses another kiss to Loki's forehead.  The corners of Loki's mouth turn up a little, and Thor goes back to his kittens in the kitchen.

The kittens twine around his legs and meow as he opens the cans of food and puts them in bowls, and he smiles as they gobble up their dinner after he sets it down on the floor.  He spends the rest of the afternoon with them in the kitchen, a gate in the doorway so that they can't get out.  They're playful, now that they're clean and fed, but Eydis seems to prefer to sit in his arms and be held while Sokkar and Ruby rough-house with each other.  The little grey kitten reminds him so much of Loki as a young adult.  Where Thor and the Warriors Three and Sif would fight in the practice ring, Loki would only watch unless coaxed out by the fighting master.  Even then Loki preferred to use his throwing knives than to have close-range fights.  Eydis nuzzles the top of her head into his chin, using his beard as a scratching post.

He plays with the kittens until dinner rolls around.  Thor knows that Loki won't come into the kitchen, first because the kittens are playing, and second because he's absorbed in his reading.  Thor's not the best cook, but what he can make he can make well.  He decides to make pasta, since they haven't had it in a while, with some garlic bread.  As he's cooking the ground beef for the sauce, if some of it falls to the ground to the kittens no one will ever know.

As he's setting the table and doling out portions Loki comes out from his cave, as Thor calls it, and they eat dinner in silence, the only sounds coming from the kittens as they play and their collars jingle.  Loki finishes first, as usual, but instead of going back to the study right away he watches Thor finish.  Thor leans back in his chair and they just sit and look at each other for a minute.

"I may have been ... _hasty_  with my assessment of your new feline companions.  I will not be cruel to them, nor will I make you get rid of them," Loki says as he toys with his fork.  "Just keep them _out_  of my study, Thor, or so help me I _will_  make you get rid of them.  That's what I need from you."

Thor smiles, but bows his head in acquiesce.  "Of course, brother.  I wouldn't want them to disturb your studies."

Loki nods sharply.  "Perhaps, after my final papers are written ... but that won't be for another week.  Just keep them _out_  from under my feet, Thor."

"Yes, brother, I will."  Normally the person who didn't make dinner takes care of the dishes, but Thor is up and clearing the table before Loki can do so in a show of his thanks.  As Thor clambers over the gate into the kitchen, he hears Loki make his way back to the study, and the door creaks quietly shut.

The kittens mewl and rub against his legs as he washes, except for Eydis, who sits at the gate and stares up, as if she's waiting for Loki to come over the gate as well.  She sits there the entire time, simply watching, until he's done.  He sits with them for a while longer, until they all seem to be tired, curling up against his legs and in his lap.  He puts Sokkar in one of the extravagant little beds he bought and climbs over the gate again, then goes to coax Loki from his studies into their bed.

* * *

The next morning, when Loki is sated and boneless, humming a song softly as he traces patterns on Thor's biceps, Thor decides to broach the matter of the kittens. "I was thinking," he starts off, "that we would introduce the kittens to the house gradually, except for the study, of course. What do you think, Loki?"

Loki hums under his breath.  "You should put the litter box in the bathroom, not the kitchen, though.  Easier to clean up."

"That's a good idea, brother.  I would never have thought of that."

Loki smiles, soft and happy.  "That's why I am the brains of the operation, Thor, and you're the brawn."

Thor laughs presses a kiss to Loki's brow, trailing them down his face until Loki pulls away and buries his head under Thor's chin.  "Stop it, your beard is dreadful."

Thor grips Loki by the hips and rolls them so that Loki's resting on top of him and Thor can run his hands down Loki's pale back, feeling all the knobs of Loki's spine and curves of his ribs.  "You weren't complaining last night, brother!"

Loki laughs now, and Thor's glad to hear it.  It's been some time since Loki was able to freely laugh.  When they were children, Loki laughed often in Thor's presence but when it was clear that Loki was different than the other Aesir it gradually decreased in frequency until Thor hardly ever heard Loki laugh.  By the time they were adults, it only happened in Thor's presence and most of the time, at his expense, and never out in public.  After they came to Midgard and Loki found his place, he started to laugh again, and now it's almost as though they had gone back to what they were.  Thor drags his fingers down Loki's sides and he laughs even harder.  It's a moment that Thor has wanted for some time, and he's sad at what it took to regain it, but he wouldn't trade it for the world.

* * *

Gradually, the kittens are introduced to the house. Ruby is the trouble-maker; she's the first to figure out how to climb onto the counter and get into food that's left out on the table. She discovers how to jump from the couch to the TV and up onto the shelves, and has taken up dive-bombing Thor as he walks underneath her perch.  She swats at their heads as they walk under her, or if she's hiding under the tables or the couch she'll swat at their ankles.  Sokkar follows her around, getting into trouble as she does, but Thor thinks that once they grow up a little more Sokkar won't follow her around and imitate her. Eydis is the calm one. She likes to perch on his shoulder and stay there, sometimes curling around the back of his neck as he sits on the couch or makes dinner. They keep away from Loki, as if they know that he's busy and not interested in their affection at the moment.

In the middle of Loki's final week of classes, Thor gets the call from the vet that he's got some openings to spay and neuter the kittens.  Thor's not happy about leaving them overnight at the vet's office, but he also doesn't want more kittens running about the house, so he leaves them.  When he picks them up the next day, they're wobbly and disoriented and even Loki's sweet to them that night, deigning to stoop down and rub Sokkar between the ears when he curls around Loki's ankles when he's cooking dinner, making it so that Thor has to hand Loki everything since Loki doesn't want to move and dislodge Sokkar.

After the kittens have been around for a few weeks and Loki's started new classes - his workload isn't as heavy as it was - Thor goes to work one morning and leaves the door to the study open when he leaves Loki working on accident.

An hour after Thor's left, Loki is sitting on the floor sorting through old notes and cataloguing them according to date and subject.  Eydis peeks around edge of the door, rubbing her face against it as if asking permission, meowing softly.  Loki glances at her and she comes in, daintily stepping around his piles of paper as if knowing he won't allow that and stops next to his knees, rubbing against his arm now.  He lifts it, intending to shoo her away, but she steps onto his left thigh and presses her head against his wrist, looking for attention.  "You're shameless," he murmurs, but presses his fingers against her all the same, trailing through her fur.  She meows and slinks into his lap, settling down after a few turns into the hollow of his crossed legs, purring lowly.  Loki can't help the smile that breaks over his face.

The others trail in later, rubbing against him a few times before stretching and settling down, Sokkar in his desk chair and Ruby on the top of the bookshelf.  They don't bother him as he works, and Eydis lets him shift her around as he reaches for papers and books.  Every so often she lets out a soft meow and he scratches her head, smiling when she licks his fingers and nips at the pad of his thumb.

That's how Thor finds them when he comes home in the afternoon; the cats and Loki strewn about the study, and none of them get up to greet him.  Loki smiles up at him, though, and there's no scolding for leaving the door open.  Thor regrets it, almost; cats and Loki are far too much alike, and now that Loki's fond of them, he'll spoil them to death.

* * *

Months later, Thor finds another set of kittens abandoned at the work site, and he brings them home without even asking. Thor knows Loki won't mind. Loki takes to them immediately, telling Thor what to do and to call the vet and warm up some water since it's November outside, and Thor bites back a smile when Loki scolds him for not taking care of the "poor babies" well enough on his drive home. Sokkar, Ruby, and Eydis crowd around the table, looking at the new family members warily. Ruby sticks her head in the box and one of the kittens whacks her on the nose with a paw. Thor laughs as Ruby jumps off the kitchen table and slinks away, pride damaged.

These kittens are sicker than the trio were, and they end up staying at the vet for a week.  When Thor comes to pick the kittens up, they have gained some weight and are clean and happy, mewling their pleasure as he scratches under their chins.  These kittens are all fluffy with strange coats, color on top and white underneath.  Two are ginger-colored with white and one is black with white, and the vet tells Thor that they're Persian kittens and will require quite a bit of grooming and care.  Why someone abandoned these cats he doesn't know, but if they're well taken care of they can sell them for quite a bit of money.

When Thor tells Loki that, Loki glares at him and says that they are _not_  selling any of the cats, thank you very much, and doesn't speak to him for the rest of the night.  Loki names them this time: the two ginger male twins are named Phobos and Deimos (Loki's taking a course on Greek Mythology) and the black and white female he names Nimue.  They get along perfect with the others - Ruby doesn't interact with them for a few days, as if she's sulking, but Eydis takes to them like she was their mother, grooming them and following them around, corralling them when they stray too far from her.

At first, Thor refuses to let them all sleep in bed with them - it's crowded, he says, and there's not enough room as it is - but Loki complains and moans about it so Thor ends up buying a new mattress, the largest size he can find, and all 6 cats begin to sleep with them.  It becomes second nature to shoo a cat off his pillow, and for the most part they let Thor and Loki shift them off the bed.  After a few months, they seem to know instinctually when they should make themselves scarce and keep out of the way.  Eydis remains Loki's favorite, and Ruby stays the one that gets in trouble constantly, but the cats are theirs more than anything else in all the Realms, and Thor likes it that way.  He thinks that Loki likes it that way, too, even if he never has admitted it.

* * *

After a year of having found the kittens (who are officially cats, now, Thor guesses, even though they still call them "the kittens") Thor is leaving work when he hears a whining, like the noise the car makes when it needs new breaks. It's raining, a soft summer rain and it's just starting to get cooler. He follows the noise to under one of the trailers on the job site and, peering under it, sees nothing at first. He grabs his flash light from his tool belt and shines it under the trailer, and there's a tiny, shivering dog hiding under the support beams. Thor shrugs off his coat and takes the time to coax it over to him, and after a few tense minutes it crawls over to him. He thinks it's white and brown but under the mud, it's nearly impossible to tell. He wraps the dog in his coat, shielding it from the rain as he jogs back to the car. Thor gets a spare towel from the back and once they're in, Thor sits and rubs the dog for a few minutes, trying to get some warmth back in it. He makes the decision then, that this little dog would have to join their family.

He takes it to the vet without even calling Loki, because he knows that Loki won't _mind_ , not really, at least, and if he does he'll get over it once he sees the dog. The vet tells him that it probably hadn't been out for long, maybe a day or two, but that they would have to keep the dog overnight in order to make sure that it was healthy and wasn't ill, and that it wasn't being looked for already. Some pets have microchips in them, and they tell the vets who owns them based on a number system. Thor nods, and like with the kittens he doesn't want to live the dog alone - Thor's already named him Maximus - but knows that if he belongs to someone else, Thor will gladly let him go.

When Thor goes home, he doesn't immediately tell Loki about Maximus. They have dinner and watch Loki's history shows, and as they're getting ready for bed, Thor asks, "How do you feel about dogs, brother?"

Loki looks at him sideways as he brushes his hair, eyes narrowed.  "I am ... decidedly ambivalent about dogs.  They are neither friend nor foe.  Why do you ask?"

Thor shrugs.  "I was just wondering."

"You're lying.  I can tell.  Why do you want to _know_ , Thor?"  Loki turns around from the dresser and crosses his arms over his chest, and Thor realizes that he had better start being honest, and fast; Loki is the God of Lies, not him, and he was never good at it, anyway.

Thor sinks down into the bedding, casting about for the right words.  "After work today, I heard ... whimpering under the bosses' trailer.  There was a dog."

Loki's lips tighten and thin, and he lets out a sigh.  "Let me guess, you took it to the vet, and after it's well you want to bring it home."

Thor shrugs again.  "I would like to, Loki.  He was small and sad, and someone abandoned him to die.  You didn't _see_  him, brother.  He was desperate."  He holds his hand out and Loki rolls his eyes but takes it and slides into bed next to him, curled up against Thor's side.

"He seems very sweet.  He did not run away, or bite me, or show any aggression at the vet's office.  I feel as though he would get along very well with the kittens."  Thor begins to run his fingers through Loki's hair, trying to lure a positive reaction out of Loki.  "You would like him.  I have started to call him Maximus."

Loki just sighs.

* * *

When Thor brings Maximus home, the cats take one look at him and scamper away from this curious thing that makes loud noises and has a whip-thin tail. It takes a few days for them to grow accustomed to Maximus being about, and they don't warm to him very easily.

In the first week of his tenure in their home, Maximus eats three newspapers, two books, half a shoe, and the cats' food.

When Thor finds his half eaten shoe, Loki only remarks, "The wisdom of cats - they knew right away he was trouble."

Thor agrees, but he'll never tell Loki that.

After a month with a steady diet and a warm home, Maximus has grown into a hearty dog - some kind of mutt, Thor guesses, but he's not sure - and the cats don't mind him so much, though training him to stop eating the cat food took all of Thor's (admittedly short) patience.

Maximus then discovers how to open cabinets.

"The wisdom of cats," Loki quips, and leaves Thor to clean up the flour and sugar and baking supplies strewn about the kitchen.

Thor will never tell Loki he is right, not ever.


End file.
